Defying gravity and expectings–learn more about Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye by Anna Warfield, the seventh annual Antigravity installation at The Rockwell Museum.
The Rockwell Museum is proud to introduce Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye, a site-specific installation by visual artist and poet Anna Warfield (she/they, b. 1995). This marks the seventh iteration of The Rockwell’s Antigravity series, an annual initiative that provides emerging artists with an opportunity to transform the Museum’s historic rotunda with thought-provoking contemporary art.
Warfield’s work is a nuanced yet whimsical exploration of identity, language, and materiality. Employing soft sculpture and quilting techniques, Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye presents an ethereal collection of bubble-like, text-based fiber forms that cascade from the ceiling of the first-floor rotunda. The installation engages visitors in a dynamic interplay between the legible and the abstract, calling on them to embrace complexity and ambiguity in human experience.
“I hope visitors engage with this work from multiple perspectives and leave with more questions than answers,” says Anna Warfield. “The experience of trying to read the poem and search for meaning may feel frustrating—and that’s intentional. I want to create a space where uncertainty can be appreciated rather than resolved.”
Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye is one of many programs and exhibitions at The Rockwell Museum in 2025 that revolve around the annual theme of Color!—investigating the many dimensions of color, from its scientific properties to its cultural symbolism and emotional resonance.
“Anna Warfield’s installation is a captivating addition to The Rockwell’s year of exploring color,” says the Museum’s executive director, Erin M. Coe. “The work is visually arresting yet layered with meaning. The cloud-like shaped pink letters drifting across the rotunda will surprise visitors both as they enter and exit the building, leaving a lasting impression that challenges expectations and activates the senses.”
Warfield is known for their extensive use of pink, and more recently blue, uncovering the many meanings society has placed on these hues, with an aim at reclaiming pink as a color of strength, empowerment, and complexity.
Educational Outreach
In addition, Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye features a collaboration with students from the International Baccalaureate Visual Arts Programme at Corning-Painted Post High School, who contributed to the dyeing of the fabric used in the work. Under Warfield’s guidance, students experimented with varying shades of pink dye, introducing an element of chance and playfulness that is integral to the final piece.
“Letting go of control has become a central theme in this artwork,” says Warfield. “Working with young artists emerging into their careers was incredibly inspiring to me. While I provided guidance, I also made space for them to experiment and leave their own imprint on the piece. Their contributions added an organic and unpredictable dimension that makes the work truly special.”
The Museum acknowledges the contributions of Corning-Painted Post student artists Alyssa Ainsworth, Keira Ceralde, Finn Chapman, Frederick Collins, Ethan Julien, Lilia Mack, Cora McNeill, Mel Peanasky, Josephine Sauer, Nimue Tubbs, Janice Van Gorden, Alyssa Wilson, and Elsa Wood.
Fast Colors Make a Slow Eye is on view at The Rockwell Museum through March 2026, and is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The Museum’s 2025 exhibitions are generously supported by Mary Spurrier.
Collaboration with the Corning Museum of Glass
As part of the Antigravity project, Warfield collaborated with gaffers at the Corning Museum of Glass’s Amphitheater Hot Shop, spending three days in residence to realize experimental designs in glass. This cross-disciplinary partnership introduces artists to glassmaking techniques alongside expert artisans, expanding their artistic practice in new and unexpected ways.
With the support and mentorship of lead Hot Glass Programs Supervisor, Helen Tegeler, Warfield designed “thought bubbles”—small, organically shaped, clear glass bulbs emblazoned with words in their signature pink hue. Warfield found it both amusing and comforting that many of the evocative words appearing in their soft sculpture poetry, such as “suck,” “blow,” “strip,” and “flash,” were already common terminology in the glassmaking realm.
“This experience at the Corning Museum of Glass is something I’ll reflect on for a long time,” says Warfield. “Fabric is soft, approachable, and, in its own way, incredibly resilient. Glass is fiery and molten before becoming sharp and fragile. I’m drawn to these kinds of binaries in my practice, not to reinforce them but to work to obliterate them.”
About Anna Warfield
Anna Warfield (she/they, b. 1995) is a visual artist and poet based in Binghamton, New York. Their predominantly text-based fiber sculptures explore unlearning and identity.
Warfield is the 2025 Antigravity artist at The Rockwell Museum (Corning) and has a solo exhibition at the Everson Museum (Syracuse) opening in June 2025. Additional solo exhibitions include UNDOINGS at SUNY Oneonta (2024) and Placid Thoughts from Inside Her Eyelids at the Roberson Museum (2023-2024). Warfield has exhibited with MAG Rochester, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Schweinfurth Art Center, Ithaca Print Shop, Site: Brooklyn Gallery, and the Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, among other spaces.
Recent awards include a NYSCA Artist Support grant, a Saltonstall Residency and Fellowship, a Community Foundation for South Central New York Women’s Fund grant, and an Arts in the Community Individual Artist Commission. Warfield holds a B.F.A. and B.S. in Communication from Cornell University, where their 2018 thesis received the Charles Baskerville Painting Award.